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The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
|language = English |budget = $18.000.000 |gross = |imagecat = The Nightmare Before Christmas }} The Nightmare Before Christmas is a 1993 American animated musical fantasy horror Halloween/Christmas film directed by Henry Selick, and produced and conceived by Tim Burton. Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score, and provided the singing voice of Jack. The principal voice cast also includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page, Paul Reubens, Glenn Shadix, and Ed Ivory. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, the King of "Halloween Town" who stumbles through a portal to "Christmas Town" and decides to celebrate the holiday. Plot Halloween Town is a fantasy world filled with monsters, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, zombies, demons, mummies, vampires, werewolves, and witches. Jack Skellington, the "Pumpkin King" and leader of the town, leads them in organizing the annual Halloween celebrations. However, privately Jack has grown weary of the same routine year after year and wants something new. Wandering in the woods the morning after Halloween, he stumbles across seven trees containing doors leading to towns representing various holidays, and opens a portal to Christmas Town. Awed by the unfamiliar holiday, Jack returns to Halloween Town to show the residents his findings, but they fail to grasp the idea of Christmas and compare everything to their ideas of Halloween, although they do relate to one Christmas Town character; a red lobster-like king who flies at night named "Sandy Claws". Jack sequesters himself in his tower to study Christmas and find a way to rationally explain it, but cannot. He ultimately decides that it's unfair for Christmas Town alone to enjoy the holiday and announces that he and the citizens of Halloween Town will take over Christmas this year. Jack assigns the citizens of Halloween Town Christmas-themed jobs, including singing carols, making presents, and building a sleigh to be pulled by skeletal reindeer. Sally, a beautiful rag doll woman that is secretly in love with Jack, feels that their efforts will end in disaster, but Jack dismisses this and assigns her the task of sewing him a red coat to wear. He also tasks Lock, Shock and Barrel, a trio of mischievous trick-or-treating children, to abduct Santa Claus and bring him back to Halloween Town. Jack tells Santa he will be bringing Christmas to the world in his place this year. Jack orders the trio to keep Santa safe, but the children instead deliver Santa to Oogie Boogie, a gambling-addicted bogeyman, who plots to play a game with Santa's life at stake. Sally attempts to rescue Santa so he can stop Jack, but Oogie captures her as well. Jack departs to deliver presents to the world, but the Halloween-styled gifts terrify and attack the populace. As concerns over "Santa's" behavior grows, the military takes action and shoots down Jack, causing him to crash in a cemetery. As Jack bemoans the disaster he has made of Christmas, he finds he enjoyed the experience nonetheless, reigniting his love of Halloween. Jack returns to Halloween Town and finds Oogie's lair. Oogie tries to kill Jack, but Jack pulls apart the thread holding his cloth form together, revealing a massive pile of bugs that fall into Oogie's cauldron and are killed. Jack apologizes to Santa for his actions, and Santa assures Jack that he can fix things and returns to Christmas Town. As Santa replaces the Halloween-style presents with genuine ones, the townspeople of Halloween Town celebrate Jack's return. Santa then visits Halloween Town and brings them a snowfall for the residents to play with. In the graveyard, Jack and Sally declare their love for each other. Cast *Chris Sarandon (speaking voice) and Danny Elfman (singing voice) as Jack Skellington, a skeleton known as the "Pumpkin King" of Halloween Town. He owns a ghost dog named Zero, who has a small, glowing jack-o'-lantern nose. Danny Elfman also voices Barrel, one of the trick-or-treaters working for Oogie Boogie. Elfman was initially cast as Jack's singing voice and, after the songs were recorded, Sarandon was cast to match Elfman's voice style. **Elfman also voices Barrel, one of the trick-or-treaters working for Oogie Boogie. **Elfman also voices the Clown with the Tear-Away Face, the self-described clown who rides a unicycle. *Catherine O'Hara as Sally, a rag doll- scarecrow like creation of Finklestein, and the growing love interest of Jack. She is an amateur toxicologist that uses various types of poison to liberate herself from the captivity of Finklestein. She's also psychic and has premonitions when anything bad is about to happen. O'Hara had previously co-starred in Burton's Beetlejuice (1988). **O'Hara also voices Shock, one of the trick-or-treaters working for Oogie Boogie. *William Hickey as Doctor Finklestein, a mad scientist and the "father" of Sally. He is listed in the credits only as "Evil Scientist" and is only mentioned by name once in the film. *Glenn Shadix as Mayor of Halloween Town, an enthusiastic leader who conducts town meetings. His wild mood swings from happy to distraught because his head spins between a "happy" and "sad" face; where some career politicians are figuratively two-faced, the Mayor is literally so. Burton and Shadix previously worked on Beetlejuice. *Ken Page as Oogie Boogie, a villainous bogeyman in Halloween Town, who has a passion for gambling. *Ed Ivory as Santa Claus, the leader of Christmas Town. Santa Claus is responsible for the annual celebration of Christmas, at which time he delivers presents to children around the world. Ivory also does the brief narration at the start of the film. *Paul Reubens as Lock, one of the trick-or-treaters working for Oogie Boogie. Reubens and Burton previously worked on Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) and Batman Returns (1992). The cast also features Kerry Katz, Carmen Twillie, Randy Crenshaw, Debi Durst, Glenn Walters, Sherwood Ball, and Greg Proops voicing various characters. Patrick Stewart recorded narration for a prologue and epilogue. While not used in the final scene of the film, the narration is included on the soundtrack album. Videos The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) Official Trailer 1 - Animated Movie External links * * * * Category:Tim Burton films Category:1993 films Category:Films of the 1990s Category:Animated films Category:Comedy horror films Category:Gothic horror films Category:Monster films